Spartan Echo

    EL CORRAL, Chile (AP) — The Diaguita Indians live in the foothills of the Andes, just downstream from the world’s highest gold mine, where for as long as anyone can remember they’ve drunk straight from the glacier-fed river that irrigates their orchards and vineyards with its clear water. Then thousands of mine workers [...]

    GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face charges of laundering $70 million in Guatemalan funds through U.S. bank accounts. The former president was taken from a military hospital where he was recovering from liver surgery and a heart condition and put [...]

  HAVANA (AP) — A Canadian businessman caught up in a corruption probe in Cuba apparently went on trial Thursday, nearly two years after he was detained and his import company, Tri-Star Caribbean, was shuttered. Sarkis Yacoubian arrived at an Interior Ministry courthouse in Havana in a black sedan with tinted windows, and was seen [...]

      LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) — The farm state of Michoacan is burning. A drug cartel that takes its name from an ancient monastic order has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror. The Knights Templar cartel is extorting protection payments from cattlemen, lime [...]

  MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexicans often feel that billionaire Carlos Slim owns everything in their country, from telephone and Internet companies to banks and chain stores, but his latest acquisitive foray is meeting resistance after touching a national passion: soccer. Slim recently bought part of two of Mexico’s first division soccer teams, setting up [...]

  COALCOMAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s top security officials promised Tuesday that a new federal offensive to rescue towns besieged by the Knights Templar drug cartel in western Michoacan state would stay “until there is security and peace for all state residents.” Interior Secretary Miguel Osorio Chong and his national security team met with local [...]

    LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) — Residents of a western Mexico area who endured months besieged by a drug cartel cheered the arrival of hundreds of Mexican soldiers Monday. People in La Ruana in Michoacan state lined the main road to greet more than a dozen troop transports and heavily armed Humvees with applause [...]

  CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hours after barely winning Venezuela’s presidential election, the ruling party started to flood state media with accusations that opposition provocateurs were firebombing Cuban-run neighborhood health clinics across the country in revenge. More than a week later, a national dispute is raging as the opposition wages a remarkably successful media counteroffensive [...]

  BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Before he became pope, Francis spoke his mind about many of the most sensitive topics the Roman Catholic church faces today. Here is a sampling from “On Heaven and Earth,” published in 2012, and his authorized biography “The Jesuit,” published in 2010 and republished last month as “Pope Francis. [...]

  BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — She uses a wheelchair and carries the weight of her 87 years, but Clelia Luro feels powerful enough to make the Roman Catholic Church pay attention to her campaign to end priestly celibacy. This woman, whose romance with a bishop and eventual marriage became a major scandal in the [...]

  RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Before she became Brazil’s bikini queen, with an empire of chic boutiques and legions of VIP fans that include Hollywood A-listers and pop royalty, Lenny Niemeyer was locked away in her garage, making swimwear out of old pareos and sliced cow bones. Sitting before this perfectly coiffed blond businesswoman [...]